Mark Curp Interview

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Mark Curp — October, 2022

Mark Curp broke the World Record at the 1985 Philadelphia Half Marathon, winning in 1:00:55. His World Record stood for five years and American Record for twenty-two years. In 1987 and 1988, Runner’s World ranked Mark the number one road racer in the world. At the Olympic Trials, he finished fifth in 1984 at 10,000 meters and fifth in 1988 in the marathon. His thirty-one road race victories include the 1986 Philadelphia Half Marathon, 1988 Falmouth Road Race, 1988 Quad Cities 10k, Midnight Madness (Ames, Iowa) 20k (1982/83/84/85), Charleston Distance Run (1990/91/92) and the 1995 Grandma’s Marathon. Mark’s big second place finishes include the 1984 Falmouth, 1987 Philadelphia Half Marathon, 1988 Elby’s 20k, 1988 Peachtree 10k, 1988 Bobby Crim 10-miler, 1988 Virginia 10-miler, 1990 Columbus Marathon and 1991 USA Half Marathon Championship. At the 1987 Twin Cities Marathon, his personal best of 2:11:45 earned third place. Mark represented the United States at the 1983 USA-East Germany dual meet, 1985 World Cross Country Championships, 1988 Asics Cup Ekiden and 1991 Pan Am Games. He is a 1981 graduate of Central Missouri State University where he was a nine-time Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association champion, nine-time NCAA All-American (seven DII and two DI) and won NCAA DII Bronze Medals in cross country (1979) and 10,000 meters (1981) and the Silver Medal 5,000 meters (1981). He graduated from Polo (Missouri) High School in 1977 where highlights include a Missouri Class 1A State Two-Mile title. His personal best times include: Mile – 4:06; 5,000m - 13:40.65; 10,000m - 28:01.02; 15k - 43:01; 10 miles – 46:50; 20k – 59:50; Half Marathon - 1:00:55; 25k – 1:14:45 and Marathon - 2:11:45. Mark has been inducted into the Central Missouri State University Athletic Hall of Fame (1987), Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches HOF (1995), NCAA Track and Field DII HOF (1997), RRCA HOF (1999), Missouri Sports HOF (2007), MIAA HOF (2013) and Hospital Hill HOF (2017). After his professional running, he was in the Finance industry for two decades. Mark currently works with developmentally challenged youth and is a running coach. He resides in Lee’s Summitt, Missouri with his wife, Teri, their three youngest children, and two dogs. Mark was very kind to spend nearly two and a half hours on the phone for this interview.

GCR:

THE BIG PICTURE As a distance runner you have been involved in the sport of running for your entire life since your early teenage years as an athlete, fan and coach. Could you have imagined in your teens a future such as this and how has running contributed to and shaped your life?

In high school I had a dream of going further with running, but I had no idea what that looked like. For a good number of years, running was a big part of my life. After I moved on from the professional part of running, I had a number of years where I worked in the finance industry. I spent twenty-one years there. In the last few years, I’ve got back into running from a coaching perspective and that’s been enjoyable.

GCR:

As you look back on your running career and the solid years of strong training and racing, what was it that drove you to aim to reach your potential rather than just participate and how exciting was it to be putting in the hard training and racing and pushing yourself to try to reach your ultimate best in terms of times and competition?

Part of it was that I loved to run. I grew up through junior high and high school and played three sports in school. We only had three sports at my school. There was football in the fall, basketball in the winter and track in the spring. We didn’t have cross country. I was raised on a farm and helped my dad. He would have me run to get something for him. There wasn’t much walking – it was more running. It came naturally. Also, I wasn’t big so, from a size standpoint, I wasn’t able to be as competitive in football and basketball as I ended up in running. That is why I developed more in that area. My basketball coach saw some potential in me and directed me to focus more on running in high school.

GCR:	I’m about a year-and-a-half older than you, to give you a time perspective, and from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, we were a part of the running boom in the United States when road racing was developing and there was a tremendous depth of runners. How exciting was it to be in the middle of this amazing group of talented runners?
MC	It was exciting. Any time you can perform in a sport you enjoy and get paid for it, that makes it very exciting. I was fortunate and blessed to be able to do that for a number of years, more than I would have anticipated early on.

GCR:	With competitors like Steve Spence, Jon Sinclair, John Tuttle, Pete Pfitzinger, Mark Conover, Keith Brantly, and so many others, what does it say when there were twenty-five top road racers and you finished consistently in the top ten and very often on the podium?
MC	It was fun and I enjoyed competing against all the guys you mentioned and others as well. It was like we were friends because we would meet each other a lot in races around the country. I enjoyed that part of being able to be friends with a number of guys and to be able to compete well with them at the same time.

GCR:

To touch more on the depth of runners, when you were racing, I was back with the sub-elites at the 1981 Peachtree 10k in 61st place in 30:29, in 1983 at the Gasparilla 15k in 47:25, a 5:05 pace, in 81st place overall and 49th in the 25-29 age group, and in tenth place at the 1979 Marine Corps Marathon in 2:22:34. Do you feel that us sub-elites were pushing the bottom part of the elites who, in turn, were pushing the top elites which made everybody better?

I think so. The competitive part pushed all of us. I remember when I came out of college and started into road racing my times started improving very quickly because I was having to chase after people. The competition always makes you better. If you can avoid getting hurt and stay with it, that helps you improve.

GCR:

At the top of our sport, there is always talk about earning medals on the world stage and breaking World Records and in 1985 you broke the World Record for the half marathon at the Philadelphia Distance Run in 1:00:55. What does it say that you broke the World Record at a distance that combined the speed of a 10k with the strong endurance of a marathon and that your World Record stood for five years and American Record held for twenty-two years?

It was interesting because I didn’t think about breaking a World Record going into that race in Philadelphia. The pace was fast, and I remember halfway through the race, about 10k, I almost dropped off the pack. Then I kind of pushed through it and was able to stay with them. The second half of the race the times were a little faster. We ran negative splits and were faster than the first half of the race. Its interesting how it develops sometimes as you may get into a race and its not going great and then you break through a spot, and it comes out better at the end.

GCR:

From my experience when I graduated from Appalachian State in 1979, as did a lot of other runners, we were self-coached and in graduate school, and most of us seemed to continue with our 5k and 10k workouts while adding more mileage and extending our long runs. We were still doing the fast stuff while increasing our weekly mileage from 80 or 90 miles to one hundred plus miles and upping our long runs from fifteen miles to 20 or 22 miles. What do you think of our being marathoners, but training like track runners?

It worked for everybody. If I went over a hundred miles a week for very long, I started breaking down. For a marathon I would get up to a hundred and three miles in a week or a hundred and seven miles another week. My second workout of most days would be biking on an exercise bike. I could get the additional aerobic fitness without all the pounding since my body wouldn’t hold up if I went much more than a hundred and ten or a hundred and twelve miles and did that for more than two or three weeks. I had several years where I averaged, over the course of the year, between eighty and eighty-five miles a week. My long runs for a marathon were twenty-two miles at the longest in training. I did a lot of fifteen-to-eighteen-mile runes. Like you said, it was more of the 5k/10k training that I did starting in college. The paces got faster in my training and the hard efforts got faster. A key factor that helped me was that I never did more than two hard workouts per week and then a race or long run. So, there were three hard efforts in a week and the other runs were recovery runs. I usually had one day a week before a race or the day after a long run where I would only run for thirty minutes or so. I seldom went seven days a week with higher mileage. I usually had one day with lower mileage. So, three hard days and four days of recovery.

GCR:

After excelling at shorter distances on the track in high school and college, along with outstanding cross-country success, your increased post-collegiate distance training focus led to great performances at all distances from 10k to the marathon, but particularly from 15k to the half marathon which was your ‘bread and butter.’ Do you feel that a runner may not find his or her best racing distance, but that distance finds the runner?

That was the distance for me, from 15k to 25k. Those were my favorite distances. I don’t know if my running economy wasn’t quite good enough to get past twenty-two or twenty-three miles but, if I struggled in a marathon, it would be the last two to three miles of the race. 10k was a little too short because I didn’t have the speed to run in the low twenty-sevens. I never officially broke twenty-eight minutes, but I did run 28:01 for 10k, so I was close.

GCR:

Many runners of our generation, including me, watched the Olympics, were inspired to compete and had a dream of running in the Olympics. When you were a youth did you think about possibly becoming an Olympian one day and, even though you didn’t make it, how exciting was it to pursue that goal?

It was exciting. I had a dream in high school, before thinking about the Olympics, of being All-American. I don’t remember exactly how that came about. I recall as a senior in high school going down to visit Central Missouri State University and mentioning to two or three guys on the team who were showing me around campus that a goal I had was being All-American. I saw them kind of chuckle a bit. Of course, time passed, and I did become All-American multiple times. I made it to four Olympic Trials and two times I was close to making the team.

GCR:

Speaking of being close, at the Olympic Trials, you finished fifth in 1984 at 10,000 meters and fifth in 1988 in the marathon. How disappointing was it to be so close and, in 1988, when was the crunch point when Mark Conover, Ed Eyestone and Pete Pfitzinger separated from Paul Gompers and you to claim the top three spots?

Regarding the first part of the question, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t disappointing. Something I tried to do when I ran races was to set a good example and perform the best I could and be thankful by how the Lord blessed me whether I won or didn’t. I tried to truly glorify God in what I did. Yes, it was disappointing but, at the same time, I was thankful for being there. In the 1988 Olympic Marathon Trials, I was up with Ed Eyestone and Mark Conover. We got to a water stop and there was a little bit of a shuffle with a motorcycle policeman. I got cut off and went across. It just happened that both made a break at that point. That is where they started breaking away from me and I was back off the lead. Paul and Pete caught up with me in the last couple of miles and I ended up fifth. I had a good effort and came up a little bit short. I look back at that time and my dad passed away that year. Had I made the team, I would have been in Seoul, Korea at the Olympics when he died. I’m thankful that I was home and didn’t have to decide to come back and be with my family. And I got to spend some time with my dad in those last few days which coincided with the Olympics.

GCR:	In the big picture, we often talk about running for God and running for country. How special was it at World Cross Country, the Pan Am Games, the USA-East Germany dual meet, Ekiden, and other races to pull on the USA uniform, to have it on your chest and represent your country?
MC	Those were big points in my career to be able to run for our country and compete with other teammates from the United States. I will always remember those days with fond memories.

GCR:

What are highlights of representing the USA at the 1985 World Cross Country Championships in Lisbon, Portugal, being teammates with fellow USA runners that were normally your competitors, and facing such strong and deep international competition?

The competition was super strong and much more than I anticipated. That race is a different animal since there are so many good runners and how tight the race is. As a team, we had an enjoyable time. We got to run around through Lisbon and some areas where I wouldn’t have gone on my own. By seeing the diversity of the city of Lisbon, I saw how blessed we are in the United States. In Lisbon, there were five-story high-rise hotels and across the street lean-to shacks. There were neighborhoods we ran through where people lived in homes that were basically plywood with dirt floors. It was a bit of a shock to me. I hadn’t experienced that in the travelling I had done up to that point. It made me appreciate what we have in the United States and to be thankful for what we have. Even today, there are many places around the world like Lisbon was back then.

GCR:

If you thought Lisbon, Portugal was an eye-opener regarding poverty, what was it like six years later when you represented the U.S. at the 1991 Pan Am Games in Havana, Cuba?

One of the more unique running trips I went on was to the Pan Am Games in Havana, Cuba. This was at a time in 1991 when no one got to visit Cuba. We saw these old buildings and old cars. Many had gone downhill, but we had a glimpse of what it looked like in its heyday before Castro and company took over. The race didn’t go that well, but it was an experience I will never forget. I made it to the half marathon. The food there tasted good, but it was greasy and had a lot of fat. So, I had intestinal problems part way through the race. I was running and asking people along the way, ‘Banos? Banos?’ A restaurant around halfway had a bathroom, so I made a pit stop. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience for anyone going in there after me. It was a cool experience to see that culture and to be around some of the guys. The race clearly didn’t go like I hoped it would. I knew at the start that there was no way could go 26.2 miles in those conditions. It was a cool trip and experience in a country where not many Americans have had the opportunity.

GCR:

Over the years you have coached runners of varying ages, ability levels and both men and women. What are some of the similarities and differences in your training program amongst the athletes you worked with since some may be stronger, some may be trying to complete a distance and there are so many variables?

Most of what I done the past three or four years has been working with kids at the high school level. I’ve coached a handful of runners who are in their thirties and forties. I haven’t had the highest caliber of runners or the fastest runners, but I’ve found it to be more fun working with kids who are developing and trying to improve. It’s been fun being assistant coach in the town where I live at the high school level for both cross country and track. I’ve also had the chance to coach in the high school wrestling program. This will be my third year. I never had the opportunity to wrestle in high school. One of my sons wrestled a bit in middle school. One of our assistant cross-country coaches is the wrestling coach at Lee’s Summit West where I work and coach so that’s been fun to experience coaching a different sport. I was able to be assistant cross-country coach when my youngest two sons were running in high school which was fun. I helped coach my middle son in track and my youngest son in both cross country and track.

GCR:

I didn’t coach a high school team but helped coach many individual high school runners for a number of years and I found much of it wasn’t the workouts. On top of a tempo workout, speed session and race, how much do you work with the kids on nutrition, sleep, consistency, proper rest and getting studies completed early in the week so they can focus on their races late in the week?

Yes, getting sleep, and making sure they have enough fluids, and their studies are more important. There are also so many more distractions nowadays that it is more difficult than when I was in school. We didn’t have electronics and the whole mass of electronic alternatives. There are also many more sports to compete with for the pool of athletes. It has been a challenge to get kids to focus, get enough sleep, and eat the right foods, which means healthy foods rather than junk foods. Stretching is another area that many kids don’t want to spend time doing. So, those are some of the areas where I try to help. When athletes can accomplish those things consistently, that is when they will see improvements over time.

GCR:

A final ‘Big Picture’ topic deals with your own healthiness. In 2015 you were diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. How tough was the chemotherapy, are you still in remission, and how did it affect your health and your outlook on the present and future?

I was healthy all the way up until 2000 as I had three episodes of atrial fibrillation and then a cryoablation two or three years before I was diagnosed with cancer. I feel like the Lord blessed me with a sense of peace, even though it was stage four cancer. The type of cancer I had wasn’t one that would kill a person quickly. If it wasn’t treated, then over time it is one that could take your life. I went through the chemotherapy and, in some ways, approached it like I would a marathon. I was fortunate that I only had to go through six months of chemotherapy and two days back-to-back each month of infusion. I was treated for six months, and I would say it is one of the toughest things I had to endure. It was much tougher than training for a marathon. When I was going into the treatment, even though I wasn’t in the top condition of my running career, I was in good physical condition and in decent shape for the age I was at the time. That made a difference. My faith and having my family and friends around me also made a substantial difference. So, I was able to have a more positive attitude and get through it. I’ve been fortunate to have seven years of remission since then.

GCR:

POST-COLLEGIATE RACING After you finished your collegiate running, how was your adjustment to road racing in 1981 to 1982 as you were winning Midwest races like the Dannon 15k in St. Louis in 45:49, Statehood Day 10-miler in Lincoln, Nebraska in 49:25, River Run 10k in Tulsa in 29:17 and Hospital Hill Half Marathon in 1:03:50? Is this when you increased your weekly mileage and did these wins give you confidence and prepare you to train harder as you readied for national competition?

Absolutely. Road racing was a natural progression for me. Like I said before, I didn’t get to run cross country in high school. When I got to college and ran cross country, I liked that more than the track. I gravitated to the roads and when I learned there was an opportunity to earn a living by running, there wasn’t as much of an opportunity on the track unless you were superfast. By that I mean if you could run 27:30 for 10,000 meters or faster. So, road racing was the route I took. I worked to improve over time. I didn’t do the super-high mileage of 155 plus miles a week. As I mentioned, my mileage was under that. I did a couple of weeks of 112 or 113 miles and ran 103 or in that range for my highest miles. Most of the time I topped out at ninety-five miles. Eighty to eighty-five miles a week was the bread and butter of my training.

GCR:

From 1982 to 1985, you were the top ten in fifty-five races, including at big races such as Falmouth, Bloomsday, Gasparilla and the Jacksonville River Run. What were you learning from these high-level races against national level competition that helped you to become a better racer and move from top ten to making many podiums?

Part of it was the consistency over time. It was important to stick with it consistently day after day and year after year. I had a competitive spirit and wasn’t afraid to go out and run with the top guys. I wasn’t one to sit back and kick at the end because I didn’t have the leg speed to do that. I got out and was used to running with the front of the pack. I would get into races and push the pace to take the kick out of guys. I was able to take the kick out of many guys, but I did get a lot of second place and third place finishes in those years.

GCR:

One race that went that way was at the 1984 Falmouth Road race when you came close to victory as Dave Murphy outkicked you by two seconds in 32:17 to your 32:19. What do you recall of that race and the battle you had on the home stretch?

It was disappointing to be right there but, at the same point, I knew that when I got better and ran my best, I would be able to get stronger. The same thing happened to me at the Peachtree 10k in 1988. I had several races where I was caught at the end of the race and there were only a matter of seconds from the winner to me in second or third place. I stuck with it for several years and I got some big wins.

GCR:

You won the Midnight Madness race in Ames, Iowa, at 25k in 1982 and 20k in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Was this race run at midnight and did you enjoy being a four-peat winner at a good distance for you? How as it when they announced you as a prior champion, you waved, and you had a target on your back?

One thing I didn’t let get me was the pressure of a race. Each race was a new race, and I went out and ran it. That distance was good for me. There were some runners from around the country that didn’t come to the Midwest for the race, and it was run at midnight. It was dark and had several loops on concrete and was a tough race. I remember always being sore after that race from all of it being on concrete.

GCR:

You moved up to the marathon and were possibly in 2:12 shape based on your half marathon times in the 1:01 to 1:02 range. Though you only ran 2:17:16 for 17th place at the 1986 Chicago Marathon, what did you learn that day that prepared you for future marathon success?

What I learned was that the marathon could be a killer. I ran the last two miles in eight minutes and eight-thirty. The other Chicago Marathon, where I ran 2:18, I ran the last two miles in eight-thirty and ten-thirty. The Chicago Marathon was not a marathon where I excelled. The year before my 2:17:16 in 1986, I ran the 1985 Chicago Marathon and was up with the leaders. That was the race where Steve Jones set the World Record. I was up with a group at nineteen miles with Rob De Castella and we were on World Record pace. I was running five flat miles and sub-fives through nineteen miles and up to twenty-one miles. At twenty-two miles I was walking. I went into the race with a cold and was taking antihistamines and decongestants before it was illegal to take them. Banning them was a good thing because they dehydrate you. I was hydrated well enough but didn’t know that. I felt good and, in the span of a mile-and-a-half, it was like something jumped on my back. I remember finally getting to the finish line after I was picked up. I did not feel good. I said aloud, ‘I am never running one of these again.’ It took me a year or so to decide to run a marathon again. Then the 2:17 in Chicago didn’t go well. I didn’t run a good marathon until I went to Twin Cities and ran 2:11:45.

GCR:

Speaking of that race, at the 1987 Twin Cities Marathon, you dropped your time almost six minutes from the previous year in Chicago with a 2:11:45 for third place. Hox exciting was it to run so much faster, and how did that race play out since you finished only six seconds behind Paul Gompers and forty-six seconds behind the winner, Marty Froelick?

We were all close and I fell off the pace in the last mile or two. They got away a little bit. It was a significant improvement compared to what I had done before. That race was a cold twenty-two or twenty-three degrees at the start. That helped me because I didn’t dehydrate as much. My time put a hunger in me to improve. I never got faster than that, but I ran some good marathons. Other than Grandma’s Marathon where I went out slower and finished strong, I usually faded somewhat in the last mile or two.

GCR:

Your best distance may have been thirty-five kilometers, which is twenty-one point seven miles, but there are no races of that distance. Let’s drop down to a much shorter distance - what are your recollections of the Bay-to-Breaker’s race in San Francisco that is known for its zaniness, but is very competitive up front where you were third in 1986 and second to Arturo Barrios in 1987?

Zany is a good word for Bay-to-Breakers. The mass of people is mind-boggling. Bloomsday was close, but Bay-to-Breakers stood alone. The years I ran, they corralled us up front and there were masses behind. Where I got a sense of how many people there were dealt with how we would run from the bay out to the ocean and back into the park. Both times I finished in the park and then did a warm down out on the road that came out from downtown San Francisco and could see this mass of people. There were still people crossing the starting line when we finished. When we were running there were four lanes of traffic full of people and there was a wall of people as far as you could see in either direction. There were people across the four lanes in Golden Gate Park. It was unbelievable to see that crowd of people when we were done, and they were still coming through. The year I took second and Arturo Barrios won, there was a BMW for the winner. It started out years before with a leased car but that year the winner got to keep the car. I went into the race in good shape and was running fast. Arturo was stronger at the shorter distances of 10k and less than I was. He entered the race the night before, so I didn’t even know he was racing until the night before. He ran great, was a little ahead of me and he got the car. That was a close one. I have fond memories of that race and the spectacle of so many people.

GCR:

Another race where you must have fond memories is in Philadelphia. After winning the 1985 Philadelphia Distance Run Half Marathon in 1:00:55, you were victorious again in 1986 in 1:01:43 and second the following year in 1:02:12. What is foremost in your mind from those three performances as to the course, the spectators and the competition?

It is a great course. There is a place around eleven or twelve miles where the road climbs a bit behind the museum where they filmed Sylvester Stallone as ‘Rocky’ running to the top of the steps. That is what I would consider the only uphill. The rest of the course is gently rolling to flat. They always had good competition. Generally, the weather was decent – not super-hot and not cold. The year that I set the record, it was in the mid-fifties at the start and closer to seventy at the finish. It is interesting though that, when there is higher heat and humidity, if you are feeling good, it doesn’t hit you as badly as when you are not having a top race.

GCR:

When you ran past the steps where they filmed ‘Rocky,’ when you saw that and you were competing strongly, did it cross your mind to have the eye of the tiger?

Not really, because in the race I didn’t notice it. We came around the side on the back left of the building and the steps were off my right shoulder. I didn’t pay that close attention, though the day before the race on a course tour, I saw where it was located. In 1985, the race was very close because up front there were Michael Musyoki and Nick Rose. The three of us had broken away during those last two or three miles. With a mile to go, after we came around the corner in front of those steps, I made a move since I knew that both Musyoki and Rose had better leg speed than me. I pulled away a bit. I made another move with a half mile to go and was able to maintain my speed. I made my last move between a half mile and a quarter mile to go, and we broke away from Nick Rose by a few seconds. Toward the finish, Musyoki was starting to pull back on me. He probably would have caught me if he had another twenty-five or thirty yards, but I got just enough of a break at the start of that last mile to win by two seconds. Officially, they had his time as 1:01 57, but in my mind, he was a second-and-a-half behind me. That was my best finish in any race in my career. The pace was consistent at 4:37s to 4:39s most of the way. The twelfth mile was a 4:41 or 4:42 up the hill. The last mile was my fastest mile of the race. We averaged 4:39 per mile and I think I ran a 4:33 last mile.

GCR:	If that was your greatest finish, in 1988 you had arguably your greatest year on the roads as you scored four big second places at the Elby’s 20k, Peachtree 10k, Bobby Crim 10-miler and Virginia 10-miler while winning Quad Cities and Falmouth. Was it a combination of staying away from injuries and stringing together years of top-level racing and training that all came together?
MC	I think that is so plus not overtraining and being able to run at the fine, red line, but not go over it. The accumulation of the racing over a period of years led up to being able to compete at a high level for a lengthy period of time.

GCR:

Can you provide some details of the 1988 Falmouth Road race where you won by only five seconds over Steve Spence with Keith Brantly in third place?

In that race, the three of us were close those last two or three miles. Coming into that last mile, my tactic was like what I had done in Philadelphia. Once we pushed up the hill before the downhill finish, I hammered that uphill very hard to get a breakaway and then was able to maintain the lead down the backside of the hill into the finish. It was a very competitive race and many foreign runners up front compared to other times I ran Falmouth. It was nice to have the three of us Americans coming in up front at the end of the race that year.

GCR:

Two years later at the Columbus Marathon you were leading Seve Spence by thirty seconds at twenty-four miles but, unfortunately the race wasn’t over at 40k, and he made a move to win by 21 seconds as you finished in 2:12:38. Were you fading or was Spence charging in those last two miles?

It was a little bit of both. I made a move at seventeen or eighteen miles to try and break away with the wind. I got a gap on him. Steve was running conservatively because he had a hamstring muscle that was bothering him. He was running stronger at the end than I was, and I slowed a bit. Unfortunately, I slowed down too much. The other guys stayed behind me, but Steve was able to come up and catch me. It was still a good race for me. In retrospect, a mistake I made was when we turned around into the wind. The last four miles were straight into a fifteen to twenty mile per hour headwind. The first two miles of that I tried to maintain my pace. I should have eased off a bit and ran hard into it but not pushed it so much. The last two miles the effort hit me hard and I slowed down. I ran five-thirty or five-forty the last two miles. If I hadn’t tried to maintain my five-ten pace the first two miles into the wind, I would have been stronger the last two miles.

GCR:

Since I live in the Orlando, Florida area, I have to ask about our local half marathon. In 1987 at the Citrus Bowl Half Marathon, I was about six minutes behind you in 1:08:27 when you were finishing in third place in 1:02:37. What do you remember about racing in Orlando with some tough brick streets in the final 5k of the race?

What I remember about Florida, because I ran several races in Florida, is that it was always a treat to be able to leave the cold, wind, snow and sleet conditions in the Midwest where I couldn’t run relaxed. I was never in my best shape at that time of the year, but it was always such a reprieve to go down and run in shorts and a singlet and not have to put on all the winter clothes. That is what I remember most about running in Florida and that race as well. The humidity was always a factor. We have humidity here is Kansas, but the dew point isn’t as high.

GCR:

You won the Charleston, West Virginia Distance Run 15-miler in 1990, 1991 and 1992 on a tough course that starts with a challenging uphill followed by a steep downhill before flattening out. Though you won by over a minute all three times, what are your takeaways from this race?

One thing that was good for me was being younger. I was always a strength runner who excelled on the hills, so the hills were good for me. I pushed hard up the hills. I learned from running college cross country to push hard and get a bit of a gap but not ease off at the top and cruise. I would keep pushing over the hill and truly gap my competition. Charleston was a course where I was able to take advantage of that situation. For runners on the receiving end of that strategy, it is demoralizing to push up a hill and find the person leading you has taken off and picked up the pace down the backside. It was hard to pull in the leader if you weren’t there at the top to go with them.

GCR:

As the years rolled on and you were in your mid-thirties, you had a nice win at the 1995 Grandma’s Marathon at age thirty-six in 2:15:23 by thirty-two seconds over Neji Makhlouf. What were the crunch points that led to your win and was it exciting to win a marathon as your running career was in its twilight years?

That was a race I went into with a more conservative approach than usual. I wanted to run hard enough to qualify for the 1996 Olympic Trials. Makhlouf went out hard and got away from Danny Gonzales and me. We were running together, and I said to Danny, ‘Let him go. He will come back.’ We didn’t try to go with Makhlouf’s pace. It was around seventeen or eighteen miles when I made a move that pulled me away from Danny. I aimed to catch Makhlouf and was able to. I had a couple of miles where I felt very good and ran sub-fives. The last two miles on the flats I was getting tired but was able to maintain the lead though Makhlouf may have come back on me somewhat. That was a gratifying race since I didn’t go out and hammer the first part of the race. I still ran hard but was conservative until I pushed at seventeen or eighteen miles.

GCR:

We mentioned your consistency earlier and, according to the ARRS, Association of Road Racing Statisticians, you were on the podium eighty-six times with thirty-one wins, thirty-five second place finishes and twenty third place results. What does this say about you and how meaningful is it to you that you were able to achieve such long-lived success at a high level?

I knew there were a lot of top three finishes, but I didn’t know there were that many. It was from my consistency in training and not overdoing it. Many top-level runners I raced against in that period were at their peak for two or three years. I don’t think my training was as over the top as some runners who ran higher mileage. I also tried to not race more than two times per month, and I had a period of two or three months during the winter where I didn’t race much seriously. Plus, the weather in the Midwest made it difficult to train hard. It was below freezing most of the time. The coldest temperature I ever ran in was twenty-two below zero wind chill. That was before there was clothing that helped runners get through those frigid days. So, I eased off my training. If I ran a marathon, it was in the fall and then I would take my break afterwards. I would start building up mileage after Christmas and then start the running season again. I didn’t treat running like a job. I loved running and, even if I didn’t make any money, I still would have run. Even after I stopped running professionally and was working in the finance industry for twenty-one years, I continued to run. I ran right up until I had cancer.

GCR:

FORMATIVE YEARS AND HIGH SCHOOL RACING Let’s go back to when you were a youth before you started your high school running. You mentioned the three sports you played in high school, but how did farm life develop a strong work ethic and what were primary principles you learned from your parents by their example that set your life up with a disciplined, consistent approach that helped when you started running?

A big part of it was my faith. I was brought up in a Christian home. We went to church starting at an early age. I think that anyone who grows up on a farm with livestock and hay learns the value of demanding work. I also learned to deal with disappointment. We weren’t wealthy. We were more properly grouped as poor farmers. We learned the values of hard work and adversity and loss in the farming setting. The experience of working hard started with getting up in the morning, doing chores, going to school, having sports practice after school and coming home to do chores again. If I had homework to study, I did that in the evening. Then I went to bed and did it all over again the next day. When I went to college, it got easier.

GCR:	Since you were from a small school, most of the boys must have played all three sports of football, basketball and track. How did you move from merely running with the team to getting a spark that told you that you liked running and could possibly be good at running?
MC	I didn’t notice it much until I was a freshman in high school. There weren’t that many boys in my class. There were forty-two kids in my graduating class and only eleven or twelve were guys. Most guys played football and basketball, and many played all three sports. We didn’t have as many that went out for track.

GCR:

Did you have the same coach for all three sports as you went from football season to basketball season to track season and who were your mentors?

We had two coaches – a football coach and a basketball coach. My basketball coach, Charlie Files, was the one who coached me in track. He saw I had some potential and encouraged me to run. During football season he had me running in the morning and I did get to run one cross country meet my senior year toward the end of the football season. He got me entered in a district cross country meet in Cameron, Missouri. I didn’t have cross country spikes. I had some shoes we picked up at Walmart. I don’t remember my place. I ran well and enjoyed the race. I didn’t do well enough to advance to the next level, but it was my first experience running cross country. My coach wanted me to get a sense of it before I went to college.

GCR:

How exciting was it to place third in the two-mile run at the Central Rivers Conference track meet your freshman year and did this spark your interest to focus on distance running?

I knew nothing about running. I ran on the farm and ran in P.E. class. That conference track race was the only race I ran my freshman year. I don’t remember my time, but I think it was eleven-something. Back then we weren’t worried about times, especially as a freshman. There were two senior guys that beat me. Leading up to the race, the P.E. coach had us run for twelve minutes. We didn’t have a track so we would run a block that went around the building for twelve minutes. I was ahead of all the upperclassmen. There were a couple who tried to catch me. Based on how I did in the twelve-minute run, coach put me in the two-mile. I ended up taking third at conference and my improvements came in the three years after that.

GCR:

What did you do in training your sophomore, junior and senior years and did you get to the State meet prior to your senior year?

I didn’t get to State my sophomore year but did my junior year. I don’t recall me times as a sophomore or junior. State was at William Jewell College and there was a torrential storm my junior year the night before the meet. The track in part of the inside lane had mud and muck that was a good inch and a half to two inches deep. It was a cinder track that turned to mud. It was a mess. I ended up taking third at State as a junior.

GCR:

How did you build on that to become Missouri Class 1A State Champion in the two-mile your senior year?

I didn’t even know cross country existed my freshman, sophomore and junior years until I ran that one cross country meet my senior year. My basketball coach knew about cross country and got me in that one race which sparked my interest and love for cross country. In track I won Conference and District my senior year. I came back and broke the State Record for Class 1A with my 9:58.2 winning time. That State meet was at Central Missouri State where I ended up going to college.

GCR:

Did you have many collegiate choices and what are highlights of the process and your decision to go to Central Missouri State University? Did you talk to the coach, and did he feel you might be a good prospect?

I checked out three different schools. One was William Jewell. I also visited Missouri State University in Maryville. At that time, Central had the best facilities and the coach had expressed the most interest. He followed up with me. I got a whopping scholarship my freshman year at Central of a hundred dollars. That was split amongst our trimester system, so I got checks of thirty-three, thirty-three and thirty-four dollars. It wasn’t a whole lot, but it is interesting how things have changed financially. My freshman year, the cost for room, board, books and tuition for the entire year was twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Today the cost is more in line with eighteen thousand dollars. I went there five and a third years and go two degrees. I got a bachelors in Agricultural Economics and a masters in Agricultural Technology. The whole bill for all of that was less than half of one year at the same school today.

GCR:

COLLEGIATE RACING When you got to Central Missouri State University, what did your coach do to step up your training your freshman year to help to bridge from being a 9:58.2 two-miler to a college conference champion by your sophomore and one of the best distance runners in the nation in NCAA DII by your junior year?

The head coach was Jim Pilkington, who has since passed away. He was more of a football player and sprinter when he was in college. He was able to get other runners and coaches that had more expertise with distance running and he built a history of great runners at Central Missouri. My freshman year there were between twenty and twenty-two freshmen. When I was in high school, I don’t know if I ever ran more than twenty miles a week. I didn’t do structured interval workouts. I would run around the track and do a minute or two minutes hard, but I mainly got out and ran. I didn’t do specific training or hard/easy workouts until I was in camp in Orangeburg my freshman year. My longest run going into camp was five miles. That first day of camp we probably ran thirteen miles. We did two-a-days that first week of camp before school started and I was so sore. It was very difficult to walk down steps. Out of all the upperclassmen and freshmen, I was the last runner during those first couple weeks. But I got used to running with them and finally started getting in some shape where it didn’t hurt so much. By the end of my freshman year of cross-country, I was kind of tied with another freshman, John Pace, who had been in the military, so he was four years older than me. John and I were the top two freshmen at the end of the cross-country season. I got to go to nationals and watch. That started a fire in me to come back. Starting my sophomore year, I was the number one runner at Central through cross country and track as well.

GCR:

That was quite a transformation from the last man on the cross-country team as you started your freshman year to winning the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) Cross Country championship, the 10,000-meter run and the 5,000-meter run three straight years from 1979 to 1981. When you did reach that championship level, do any of these races stands out for tight competition, a close finish or a strong kick to come from behind for the win?

A sizable number of those races I won by a fair amount and a handful were closer. I don’t remember any of them that came down to a kick where I won by a kick. I never officially broke sixty seconds for the quarter mile in practice, so I didn’t have tremendous leg speed. I just always ran hard. My senior year in college during the 10,000 meters in track I lapped most of the field. One guy who ended up becoming my brother-in -law was running and I lapped him. I ran with him for a bit, maybe half of a straightaway and he said, ‘Keep going!’ That was my 29:13 personal best time in college.

GCR:

At the NCAA DII Cross Country Championships, you were third in 1979 in 30:10 at Riverside, California and fifth in 1980 in 30:33 at Kenosha, Wisconsin. Were you in the lead pack and close to the win and what are highlights of those All-American performances?

I was in the mix to win. At Riverside I had a bad start. The course came down to about two runners wide at about three hundred meters. I was running off the edge. There were some type of trees – it may have been a peach orchard. I was running through those trees, and it was gently rolling terrain, but relatively flat. I was running at the edge of the pack up against the trees. Then I was sprinting after that stretch to try to get around to the front. The race came down to the three of us and I ended up taking third. My senior year I was in better shape, but Garry Henry from Pembroke State was in the race. I’d never run against Henry before, and he was huffing and puffing. I thought, ‘This guy’s going to die.’ He was wheezing loudly, but totally surprised me. I overextended myself to stay up with him and ended up taking fifth place in that race. Those are good memories though. Garry Henry went on shortly afterward to win the Fukuoka Marathon after winning this NCAA DII cross country race and being All-American in NCAA DI cross country.

GCR:

On the track at the 1981 NCAA DII Championships, you were third in the 10,000 meters in 29:50.3 and second the next day at 5,000 meters in 14:02.21 30th in Macomb, Illinois. How did those races play out and were you close to winning either race?

I ran stupid in the 10,000 meters. We warmed up and were getting ready to run. It was hot and humid. Then a big rainstorm came through and there was a delay. I went out too hard. I ran my first mile in the low 4:30s. It was too hot and humid for me to run that kind of pace. I wasn’t going to run twenty-eight flat. I got in oxygen debt, struggled and finished third. The next day I had recovered and was licking my wounds a bit because, in my mind, I should have won the night before. I came back in the 5,000 meters and, the first part of the race, I was in the back of the pack. I worked my way up and got all the way up to second place and finished with my best time in my college career. I think if I had another half a lap, I may have caught the leader. I was coming on strong because I went out and just hung out and worked my way up. I felt so much better that day than the night before in the 10,000 meters.

GCR:

In 1981 you also competed at the NCAA DI Track and Field Championships, placing tenth at 10,000 meters in 29:40.3 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. How was it stepping up to that level of competition?

Back then, if you placed high enough and had a fast enough qualifying time, you qualified for the NCAA DI Championships. It was very competitive. I also competed my junior year at NCAA DI in the 10,000 meters. Both years I was sixth American, so I was DI All-American both times. I remember both years there was so much heat and humidity. My junior year was in Austin, Texas and, as you mentioned, my senior year was at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My senior year I came around a turn at one point and Michael Musyoki, whom I raced many times after college, was laying at the side of the track. He was overcome by heat. The temperature on the track had to be a hundred and ten or a hundred and fifteen degrees. It was horrible. The meet officials were spraying us with water if we wanted them to spray us every time we came around the track. They missed spraying me one time and I thought my head was going to explode before I got around again. It was that hot. I was able to place ninth my junior year and tenth my senior year. I met my goal and was top six and DI All-American.

GCR:

Did you run on any relay squads at Drake Relays, Texas Relays, Kansas Relays or other meets where you would have to drop down to shorter distances in the four by one mile relay or distance medley relay?

Now that you mentioned it, I didn’t. I was focused on the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters outdoors and on cross country in the fall. Indoors I did run the mile and two-mile, but no relays. I didn’t do the steeplechase outdoors, which a lot of guys tried. I never ran the 1,500 meters outdoors because we had some guys at Central Missouri who were faster than me. I did run the mile indoors in 4:13, which was my fastest time in college. I did get that down to 4:06 after college. My strengths were in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters and those were tough enough doubles without also running relays.

GCR:	Are there any other collegiate races we haven’t discussed that you wish to mention for a fast time, strong competition, or holding off a challenger at an outdoor invitational meet or indoors?
MC	It is quite a blur. The big item was that I was able to win my conference in cross country, both the 5,000 meters and the 10,000 meters my sophomore, junior and senior year. They didn’t come down to a sprint at the end. I was able to pull ahead and get a gap to avoid the sprint at the end which wasn’t my forte.

GCR:

Professional running was in its infancy when you graduated from college. How fortunate was it that you were able to sign with New Balance and further your running career professionally which wasn’t even an option when you started college?

I had no idea. I ran well at the TAC Championships in the 10,000 meters in Knoxville, Tennessee to place fourth and I was wearing a pair of New Balance racing shoes. After the race, a representative from New Balance saw I was wearing their shoes and came up to talk to me. I was wearing the one pair of New Balance shoes my team gave me in college. They approached me and asked me if I could use some shoes and equipment and they got me both. So, I planned to wear a New Balance uniform and shoes at my next race. My first opportunity to run at the world class level was at the Diet Pepsi 10,000 Meter nationals held in New York City. I qualified to compete based on a race I ran well in Kansas City. It was only the second time I got to fly in an airplane. I flew once to a meet in college, but all the other times we drove even when the meets were in California and other places. My one flight was to Lehigh University. When I was racing in New York City, I didn’t even know there was prize money until the night before the race. I don’t know how I missed that fact, but I knew I won a trip to New York City and we were staying at the hotel right next to Grand Central Station. It was a bit of a shock riding in a taxi in New York City with all the horns honking and people screaming. I went to the pre-race dinner the night before and they announced there was prize money. That was the first inkling I had that we could maybe make some money at this. I took second place behind Rod Dixon and was a couple seconds ahead of Bill Rodgers. Nobody knew who I was at the time. After that, New Balance paid for me to compete at Falmouth, in August of 1982, which was my first experience there. I got my first contract with New Balance in January of 1983. It started out low, built up over a period and went down toward the end of my career. My money contract went with them until December of 1997. After that they still supported me with shoes and equipment for another five or ten years, so I was very fortunate.

GCR:

TRAINING Let’s talk about training. You spoke earlier about your high school training or lack thereof. When you got to college, what was added to your training such as repeat 440s, ladders, hill repeats and mile repeats in cross country season and other more focused and regimented training?

We did all those workouts you mentioned and kind of rotated through them starting my freshman year. One of the vigorous efforts we did in college were hard ten-milers. We would go out and hammer ten miles. We didn’t do that every week, but probably once a month. I didn’t do them too fast my freshman year. I don’t know that we had an exact ten-mile course. They might have been a bit short. But we were running hard ten-milers in fifty-four or fifty-five minutes. That built the base for what I did beyond college where I continued doing hard ten-milers and I would do them in fifty-two or fifty-three minutes. After college I usually did them by myself, though I did have Charlie Gray that I trained with a lot when he lived here. He kept me going on some of those harder workouts. I was usually ahead of him but having somebody there, so I wasn’t all by myself, helped. But over the years I did the bulk of my running by myself.

GCR:

What kind of weekly mileage were you doing during your college years in-season, between seasons and in the summer?

In summers I didn’t run that many miles but, after not running going into my freshman year, I never made that mistake again. I started keeping track of my mileage during cross country camp before my freshman year. I hadn’t tracked my mileage prior to then. I had some decent mileage in college. There were a few weeks where I got up to over a hundred miles but, most of the time, we were in the seventy-five to eighty-five range. In college, some of the assistant coaches had us push the pace more times per week than I wanted to. When I ran hard, I ran hard. There were guys on the team that I would be running behind on the easy days and ahead of on the hard days. That is when I started implementing where I didn’t run hard efforts four or five days a week. I could have run that many hard days because there was enough competition and some guys wanted to hit it hard every day, but I didn’t. I understood the value of recovery and letting our bodies have a chance to recover so we could run very good efforts on our hard days. I always found it hard to run my best in workouts. I would run hard but not close to what I was able to do in actual races. So, I didn’t lead too much in workouts. The challenge we have as runners is too not leave our races in our workouts.

GCR:

Post-collegiately, you talked about your mileage and long runs. Let’s go more in-depth on your long runs and tempo runs and the length and pace.

On my long recovery run days, I didn’t often run slower than six-minute pace or six-ten pace. Of course, I was racing usually 10k to a half marathon where my race pace was around four-forty-five pace per mile. On hard tempo efforts, I was usually running at five-thirty pace. If they were shorter efforts, they were sub-fives. I would get down close to race pace. On the longer runs, there were some that were around six-minute pace and down to five-thirties in the latter part of the run. That was still forty-five seconds off race pace. A lot of time when I was two miles out from the end of a run, I would go down to four-thirty or four-forty pace for a mile before warming down at the end of a seventeen- or eighteen-mile run.

GCR:

Earlier you mentioned suggesting stretching to runners you coach and how you did some biking. Did you regularly incorporate cross-training, weight training, stretching, massage and chiropractic care into your regimen?

I had a chiropractor. During the main part of my career, I didn’t have access to a massage therapist which would have been very helpful. Towards the end of my career, I met a guy here in the Kansas City area and he taught me how to do massage. So, during the latter part of my career, I would get a massage once every week or two for forty-five minutes to an hour and reciprocate. For cross training I didn’t have easy access to a pool but, when I was injured, I would find a pool and do pool running with a jogger belt. The bulk of my cross-training was biking. My first training session of the day was either a hard run or an easy run in the morning. My second session in the afternoon was usually on the exercise bike. I would go at a good pace on the bike for forty-five minutes after running anywhere from twelve to fifteen miles in the morning. That second effort of the day was done during the main part of my career three or four times a week. My longer runs and recovery runs during the summer were done in hot weather, so my afternoon session was inside and on the exercise bike.

GCR:

WRAPUP AND FINAL THOUGHTS Since you have had success over your running career at 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters, 15k and 10 miles, half marathons, fifteen miles and the marathon, what is your favorite racing distance and why is that so?

If I picked one distance, it would be the half marathon and a close distance, the 20k races. I liked the 15k and it was a good distance for me, but 20k to 25k was my sweet spot. The half marathon is clearly my favorite distance. I had success at that distance and there weren’t that many half marathons around the country back then. Also, a runner couldn’t u as many half marathons during a year as 5ks or 10ks.

GCR:

From your many years of racing, who were some of your favorite competitors, not so much in high school or college, but mainly on the road racing circuit due to their ability to give you a strong race and bring out your best?

There are so many guys. If I were to start with my friends and competitors, there was Ed Eyestone, Paul Gompers, Mark Conover, Paul Pilkington, Paul Cummings, Jon Sinclair and Steve Spence. I had a chance to go out and train with Paul Cummings, Paul Pilkington and Ed Eyestone before one of my Twin Cities races. It was a rough time in my running career when I was going through a separation and divorce. I would place that as a more challenging time emotionally in my life even than going through cancer and chemotherapy. I had never trained outside of the Kansas City area. I was coming off a rough race in Charleston, West Virginia where I did not run well, and I had the opportunity to get away for six weeks and went out and trained with the two Pauls and Ed Eyestone for that period. After that, I ran the Twin Cities Marathon and ran faster splits than at the Charleston Distance Classic. It was good to get away emotionally and train and be with those guys. There were also many foreign athletes I raced against that I consider friends over those years. The few times since then I have been able to see any of them feels like it was just yesterday.

GCR:

When I interviewed Jon Sinclair, he talked at length about hilly races and how his toughness as a hill runner helped him on difficult courses. Were there times when you and Jon Sinclair were in the heat or battle while racing because you are both such good hill runners?

Absolutely. We raced against each other a sizable number of times and in some he was ahead of him and in some I was ahead of him. I remember one race that was in Dallas. We had a disagreement during the race with the patrol men who were monitoring the course. Jon was getting very angry at this one policeman. He lost focus and I took advantage of it. I got a breakaway and ended up placing ahead of him. I was kind of shocked because some words were discussed with the policeman, and I thought he was going to take us off the course at one point. Jon and he were going back and forth, and Jon was mad at the time. Since he was mad, it gave me a chance to get a break. Jon was an awesome competitor. I enjoyed racing against him and knowing it would be a tough race.

GCR:

You have been inducted into the Central Missouri State University Athletic Hall of Fame (1987), Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches HOF (1995), NCAA Track and Field DII HOF (1997), RRCA HOF (1999), Missouri Sports HOF (2007), MIAA HOF (2013) and Hospital Hill HOF (2017). Is it both rewarding and humbling to be honored and do you have any special memories from any of the induction ceremonies from sharing the moment with your family, friends, teammates or coaches?

They have all been humbling and rewarding. The CMSU and Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductions were made more special because I was able to have so many family members and friends share the ceremony with me.

GCR:

What do you typically do now for health and fitness in your early sixties so you can enjoy all life has to offer?

The job I have currently is working with a student who has cerebral palsy. I’m with him all day at school. He is a great kid with a wonderful sense of humor. It’s probably the lowest paying job I’ve had but, of all the jobs I’ve had and loved, it is the most rewarding job I have had. I’ve been with him for almost three years now. I get to walk with him during P.E. class. He has a walker, and we go out walking. As far as staying fit, I would be running more, but I have a knee that started bothering me in May. If I run a mile, I feel it for two or three days. I haven’t gotten to the point where I want to go to the doctor and consider surgery. I don’t think they can fix it without surgery. There is a tendon that I injured at Home Depot last year and I think I might have torn something. The knee will pop on me. If I move it around, it will feel better. If I run on it much, then it hurts. I run easily with the left leg. What I can do is I can walk, and I can ride the bike. I can swim too, but its not convenient. There is a trail now on an old railroad bed that I waited for years to be built during the main part of my running career. They finally finished it about three years ago. I ran on it some prior to when my knee started bothering me and I have biked a lot on it. I enjoy biking and being out on the trail where it is tree covered, whether it winter or summer. It’s nicer on the trail. So, my main exercise is biking and walking. Hopefully, at some point I’ll get back to more running. When my knee gets to the point where I’m having trouble walking, then I will probably have the doctor perform surgery to see if they can fix it. Since there is usually a long recovery, its not bad enough at this point. Its not like I feel I have to go out and run every day. I can walk my three or four miles a day and bike and still enjoy it, so that’s what I’m doing now to stay in shape. I don’t do much resistance work and lifting of weights as I used to and am not consistent as I would like to be. I do body weight resistance exercises and stretching. When I am more consistent, I always feel better.

GCR:

When you are asked to sum up in a minute or two the major lessons you have learned during your life from the discipline of running, being a part of the running community, helping and coaching others, balancing life’s components, and overcoming adversity, what you would like to share with my readers that will help them on the pathway to reaching their potential athletically and as a person, the ‘Mark Curp Philosophy of Life’?

My faith is number one and then relationships. If you don’t have good relationships, then you don’t have much. Keeping a positive attitude is important, which I did even through tough times in my life with atrial fibrillation, cancer, a divorce, and losing my younger brother and my dad and my grandpa to cancer. I try to maintain a cheerful outlook because the Bible says, ‘In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’ It doesn’t say to be thankful for the difficult things that come along. It says that in those situations find what we can be thankful for. Its easy to be thankful when things are going well – right? That’s easy. But how do we manage the tricky situations in life that everyone must handle. Being able to approach tough times with a strong faith and a positive attitude isn’t easy to do. But if we take the time to look at each situation and think about what we can learn and what are the positives we can pull out of it, then we can go forward. And largely, how can we help others going through similar circumstances. We should approach life that way because life is too short to dwell in the negative. I try to approach life in that perspective and make a difference in other people’s lives. In my life, the times I have felt the most joy and peace are when I was able to help others. With my church I serve helping with parking of all things, helping people find a place to park in all kinds of weather. My family and I have served a nonprofit organization called Coldwater that provides food and clothing to underprivileged. In the summer we do barbeques for low-income housing people. Being able to do things like that is wonderful because so often in life we are selfish human beings. We want what we want. To take time out to make a positive difference in someone else’s life is heartwarming, and even more for me than to the people I’m trying to help. My parents always taught me to work hard, and I’ve found in my life that nothing worthwhile comes easy and, if it does, it doesn’t last long. Effort and challenging work are involved for things that are long-lasting. And sometimes I had to learn that more than once. It is a process and I’m very blessed with the life that the Lord had blessed me with. I try to share that and have influence in the life of those with whom I come in contact.

	Inside Stuff
Hobbies/Interests	I’m not active in coin collecting and stamp collecting now, but I went through periods in my life where I collected stamps and collected coins. I put that aside, but it is still an interest. I like doing things outside. I grew up on a farm and it has always been a reprieve to get away from the city and go back to the farm. I like hunting. I like deer hunting and rabbit hunting and squirrel hunting. I enjoy deer hunting and not so much to get a deer. I do love the meat and can take care of a deer and butcher it and process it myself. I did that for many years with my grandad. I hunted for one year with my dad before he passed away. I started back in 1981 with my grandad and got to hunt with him for several years before he passed away. I’ve only missed hunting one year since 1981. I like fishing and hiking. I enjoy remodeling projects at home. My wife and I have done some remodeling projects on our house within the last year. The house is twenty-two years old, and we’ve been in it for seventeen years, going on eighteen years. We have redone the kitchen and some other rooms on the main level. The last job was working on this gas light fireplace which had a shelf that went twelve or thirteen feet across. We closed off the old gas light fireplace and sealed it and put in insulation. We built a chaise around it. My wife bought an electric fireplace that has flames with multiple colors. We picked doors and shelves for the bottom part and built floating shelves and what looks like a fireplace on top that would lead to a chimney. That was an enjoyable experience and was our biggest project. I painted my house this past summer which was a five- or six-week job since I tried to work before the heat of the day. I do enjoy fixing things, tinkering around and doing my own mechanic work on my car. I change oil, belts, filters and other items. I do anything I can do so I don’t have to pay somebody else. Part of that I learned from necessity when I was growing up on the farm. I learned not to be afraid to get in and tackle something new. Even nowadays with Google I’ve replaced the torsion springs that go across the top of my garage door a couple times. I learned that by doing a Google search, watching how it was done and figuring that I could too
Nicknames	I have one sister that called me ‘Tarky.’ How that came up, I don’t know, and that was just in our family. I never had much in the way of nicknames. I was called ‘Curp, my last name. With the four letters in Mark, it is straightforward. My last name has been mispronounced in my running years. I was called ‘Culp, and ‘Crop’ and ‘Cup.’ They would get Suleiman Nyambui’s name correct and mispronounce mine
Favorite movies	I do like action movies, but my favorite movies would be the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies
Favorite TV shows	I haven’t watched much television in recent years. With access to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, I’ve watched more series on those networks in recent years. One that I watched some and binged a couple seasons that were just released is ‘Cobra Kai,’ a karate series. It’s entertaining and, since my wife was out of town yesterday and last night, I had time to binge watch. My wife and my three sisters went to Branson, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from here. So, I watched too many episodes of ‘Cobra Kai’ last night. I try not to go too crazy with the easy access now because three hours can go by just like that and I don’t get much done. If I watch news, it’s usually by checking on my phone
Favorite music	Contemporary Christian music. I love listening to music, but I have never been one who has learned all the words to the tunes. My wife sings and has recorded a couple of CDs. She finished her second CD after Adam was born and he is twenty years old now, so it’s been a while. Her songs are Christian music
Favorite books	My favorite book is the Bible. The other books that capture me the most are by Frank Peretti. I like ‘Piercing the Darkness.’ His books are fictional but are based on the spiritual realm between evil and good. I am not a big reader. I can read well, but it isn’t something I enjoy doing that often. My three youngest kids love to read. My wife loves to read, and I have sisters that love to read and can sit down for hours with a book. But it takes a lot for me to sit down and read. There are books by Frank Peretti and Ted Becker. I’ve read four or five or their books and when I sat down, I couldn’t put their books away. It takes a special book for me to have that experience. Books on how to do things are books I enjoy. In college I didn’t read all the textbooks. I learned how to look through the textbooks and underline key items and that seemed to work out well for me
First cars	A 1959 Ford pickup. My grandad had it and I bought it from him. A while later, my dad was getting a ton truck with a camper, and we traded my 1959 pickup truck to buy the camper. Then my first car that I had for any length of time was a 1966 Ford Mustang. It was a hard top, but I had a vinyl roof put on it and that made it look like a convertible. It had white pinstripes around on the doors. It wasn’t candy apple red, but a deep red. Parts of me wish I had that Mustang, but I gave it to my younger brothers, one who has since passed. I had a Chevy S10 pickup and didn’t need the Mustang and figured my brothers could use it because it still ran. Later, it was in worse shape and my dad was going to help them fix it up because it had started rusting. Then my dad passed away and the car sat in the yard for years. We ended up selling it years later to a guy who refurbished it. The car would be kind of neat to have but I don’t have a place to put it
Current car	I drove that Mustang all through college and after college. I’ve been through a number of vehicles since then and currently I have a 2012 Chevy Colorado pickup. I’m not huge on cars. Its transportation. It doesn’t have a big engine, but it gets me there and back for what I need to do. It is good for going up to the farm and hunting. We have five vehicles in our family now with the three younger kids at home
First Jobs	Three of my uncles, two of my dad’s brothers and one of their brothers-in-law, had a rough-in construction business. During the later part of high school, going into college and for three summers of college I worked rough-in carpentry building houses. That is where I learned the remodeling skills I use now on my house, from working with them building houses in the Kansas City area. That was my first main money-making job. Before that I had livestock that I raised and crops that I grew. I was in the FFA, Future Farmers of America, in high school and made some money from the livestock and crops. While I was in college, I had an internship at a John Deere dealership in the parts department. I received college credit and got paid a little bit too
Family	Adam is twenty, Keenan is nineteen. Ellen is seventeen and will be eighteen in December. Ellen is finishing high school, but she is only at the school a couple of hours each day. The rest of the time she is at the junior college. Adam is finishing his Associate degree at the junior college not far from us. My son, Keenan, is a freshman at the junior college. We have an ‘A+ Program’ here and if you perform a certain number of hours of tutoring and community service, maintain a specified grade point average and meet attendance requirements for three years of high school, then your tuition at the community college is taken care of. We are taking advantage of the A+ program to get those Associate degrees. When Keenan graduated last year from high school, he had fifteen hours of college credit. My youngest, Ellen, will have forty to forty-five hours of college credit by the time she graduates from high school. She may get her Associate degree in the first semester after high school. My two older kids are out of the house. My oldest daughter, Whitney, just turned thirty-six and has two boys, a ten-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. Her third son will be born in November, so I will have three grandchildren. My oldest son, Jonathan, is thirty-seven and is a general manager at an auto repair business about thirty minutes from us. He is not currently married and has never been married. He puts a lot of time in at his job. That wasn’t his background, but he did a career change through his contacts, and it is working out. Teri is my wife. I was one of six brothers and sisters in total. I have an older sister, Karen. She is fourteen months older than me. I have a sister, Sheryl, who is two years younger than me. My sister, Darla, is five years younger than me. I had a brother, Brad, who was about fifteen years younger than me. He passed away from cancer and has been gone for quite a while. My youngest brother, Brian, is seventeen years younger than me. My dad and mom are Donald and Barbara. My dad passed away from cancer in 1988 and my mom remarried about five years later. His name is Warren. He was a friend of the family, and I knew him when I was growing up. We went to the same church. Things had changed in his life and then my dad died. One of my sisters kind of played matchmaker and got them reintroduced to each other. Then they dated for a while and got married the year before Teri and I got married
Pets	We always had cats when I was growing up. On a farm, they helped take care of the mice. We had dogs at a few various times. We had one dog called ‘Blondie’ and she was a terrier mix. She ran with me when I was in college. I would come home, and she would run twelve or thirteen miles with me. That was my training partner when I was home in the summers from college. Currently, we have two dogs. We have a Yorkshire terrier and she’s a big one. She weighs about nine pounds and is oversized for her breed as they are usually in the six-to-seven-pound range. Her name is ‘Abby.’ We have an Aussie Doodle, which is an Australian Shepherd and Poodle mix from a mid-sized Poodle. His name is ‘Mac’ and he’s a smart dog. He’s coming up on two years old and is a fun dog to play with. When we got him, he was about eight pounds, the same size as Abby. He was only supposed to get up to twenty-two or twenty-four pounds. Now he weighs about forty pounds. He loves to tease our other dog. He retrieves toys and puts them in Abby’s face. Then he twirls around and keep his behind toward her and runs away and she chases him. It’s fun having them. They are inside dogs, and I had grown up not having any animals in our house so that was the biggest adjustment for me. I still don’t like having dogs inside, but these dogs are cool dogs
Favorite breakfast	Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I like scrambled eggs mixed with cheese and bacon. I also like waffles. I like mixing eggs and waffles together. But what I eat most is cereal. I’ll have a whole grain cereal or granola. I take Greek yogurt, usually vanilla flavor, add it to the cereal, and mix in blueberries and strawberries. When I was running more, I would add in more fruit. Sometimes I would start with Cheerios and add millet and fruit and that was my breakfast. I added all sorts of fruit – grapes and cut up nectarines and lots of different fruit
Favorite meal	There are so many foods I like. I enjoy any types of dishes with chicken. My wife will get salmon from Aldi on a cedar plank with rice that comes in ninety second preparation bags. I like to add steamed vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and carrots
Favorite beverages	My favorite beverage is water. I never drank much alcohol. I tasted it a few times, but never found any alcohol I enjoyed. I like the taste of Sprite, but don’t drink many soft drinks and haven’t for years. When I was running a lot, I drank Kool Aid, but I don’t now. It had a lot of sugar. I have a magnesium powder that has a cherry tart taste and I mix a teaspoon with twenty ounces of water and that is what I drink
First running memories	When there was a tool needed, my first memory of running was helping my dad on the farm. We were always in a rush to get something done, so I would be off and running. That is my first memory of unorganized running. As far as organized running, it would have been in the seventh grade. The furthest we could run back then was 440 yards. As an eighth grader, we could run 880 yards. Those are my first memories of actual organized running. In the town of Polo, Missouri where I grew up, we had P.E. class, but either didn’t have the Presidential Fitness test or it didn’t make an impression on me
Running heroes	We didn’t have a lot of access to television. We had a TV but got our first color TV when I was in high school. The first runner that I remember was Frank Shorter from the 1972 Olympics. After that was Bill Rodgers. I had heard about him and read stories in running magazines. Then when I was older, I got to race against him and the first time I raced him I beat him by a couple seconds at the Diet Pepsi 10k
Greatest running moments	The Philadelphia Half Marathon win and World Record would be at the top of my list. There is a series of races in West Virginia including Elby’s Distance Classic, which was one of the toughest to race. It would beat you up the most because of the steep up hills and steep downhills. The Bix and Falmouth races are great memories that stand out. Those are the biggest ones though there are many races I enjoyed. I liked running in the northwest U.S. like at the Cascade Runoff too
Worst running moments	The Pan Am Games had horrible conditions of high heat and humidity in the nineties. And when the race started, the sun hadn’t even come up. And then I had that DNF at halfway. My worst running moments include the first race that I ever dopped out of at the Chicago Marathon. Not being able to finish the marathon at the Olympic Trials the year I had sprained my ankle two weeks before. It ballooned up and was taped up. It locked up on me about halfway through and I couldn’t keep going
Childhood dreams	That is a thought where I wasn’t initially sure. I grew up on a farm and dad kind of wanted me to come back and farm. I love the farm and the setting of being there, but it is a hard way to make a living. And so, I didn’t truly want to go back here. When I started out in athletics, I preferred football and basketball to running. I didn’t know much about running. Football and basketball were the biggest sports in Polo and track was just what we did in the spring. It wasn’t a sport I loved until my freshman year when I took third at Conference. That is when my dreams started in running. Football and basketball kind of went to the back. I liked playing those sports more than I liked watching them, though I do enjoy watching professional athletes play football now
Funny memories	Here is a story my family gets chuckles from. I mentioned earlier that I never drank much alcohol. But in college I got very sick. I had a hundred plus temperature. I was sick and felt horrible. So, I bought some Vick’s Nyquil and some Vick’s Formula 44. I proceeded to take a triple dose of Vick’s Nyquil and I don’t know how many swigs of Vick’s Formula 44. They both have a lot of alcohol. Yes, they do. I don’t have much experience being drunk. But I do remember my head buzzing. It was like how one of those old mercury streetlights outside makes a buzzing sound. I remember laying in my bunk bed in college and my head was buzzing. I woke up the next morning and my sheets were soaked, and the cold was gone. My family jokes around about that. 'Dad didn’t drink, but this one time he was drunk'
Embarrassing moment	: I went down to run a race in Tulsa. I had run a race the weekend before and this was one of those rare times I had a race the weekend afterwards. I got the starting time of the race mixed up. I drove down there, was stretching in my room and getting my shoes on. ‘Boom!’ They shot off a cannon and I was still in the room. That was super embarrassing to have the race organizers bring me in to race and I didn’t even make it to the start. That is the only race in my whole career that I missed. Out of frustration I went down to the race and watch some of the runners as they were coming back in. That was disappointing and never happened again
Favorite places to travel	We’ve been fortunate since Teri and I got married to have one method of travel we enjoy and that is with a time share we bought back in 1998. I wouldn’t suggest buying one now, but we have enough points through Wyndham to travel and go places to vacation resorts. We’ve stayed on the east coast, on the west coast, up in Wisconsin Dells and on the Gulf coast and places in between. North Myrtle Beach is my favorite beach to stay. That’s my number one because the beaches are packed sand, are not steep, and you can run for miles. North Myrtle is not as busy as the main part of Myrtle Beach and is my favorite beach for running. My favorite place to vacation is in the mountains of Colorado. Teri and I both love the mountains. Interestingly, I’ve never been to the mountains in the wintertime. I’ve never snow skied or water skied and I didn’t back when I was younger because I didn’t want to get injured and be unable to run. In the mountains, I love to hike and love the wildlife. In the summer time I like the cool weather in the morning. I was at a cross country camp one summer morning in Leadville, woke up, and it was twenty-three degrees. If there was one place in Colorado that Teri and I have enjoyed the most, it is the Estes Park area. I don’t like the crowds, but during the summer we have a youth church camp at the YMCA camp at Estes Park and that is a tremendous experience and lots of fun. Overseas, the trip to Sydney, Australia was the longest air trip I have had. I went down to run the sister race to the Bay to Breakers. It is called the City to Surf race. I was only there for fifty or so hours. I got to go to Australia for the first time and ran around the opera house and places I’ve seen in movies before then and since then. I’ll see one on television and say, ‘I’ve run around that building.’ That is the neatest place. Going to Lisbon, Portugal was very cool. After my running career I went to Bristol, England to the World Half Marathon Championships as one of the coaches and that was a cool experience. That was right when we started bombing and attacking Saddam Hussein and we didn’t know if we would be able to get through to Europe. That was a wonderful experience to ride on the train out to Bristol from London